At the Dallas Morning News, Vernon Smith Jr. has a riveting report on the dirty and dangerous job being done by the 56th Brigade Combat Team of the Texas Army National Guard, as they search for improvised explosive devices: Texas guard unit on an explosive mission. (Hat tip: jlfintx.)

AD DIWANIYAH, Iraq – The young Iraqi shepherd spoke little English but found a way to get the Texas soldiers’ attention.

“Boom!” he said, pointing to a culvert in his field.

The shepherd approached on a recent morning as the Texas Army National Guard convoy stopped to scour a section of highway for the deadly homemade bombs used widely by Iraq’s insurgency.

Since they landed in Iraq in January, the 56th Brigade Combat Team has had the dangerous job of searching for roadside bombs along one of the U.S. military’s major supply routes. The crude bombs have killed and maimed hundreds of U.S. and allied troops and have sparked intense pressure for the Pentagon to provide American forces with more, better armored vehicles.

After confirming the shepherd’s discovery – two 122 mm mortar rounds bound together in the culvert – soldiers stopped traffic on the six-lane highway in both directions, and cars soon began to stack up.

It would be more than five hours before Navy experts arrived to destroy the mortars, enough time for the Texas soldiers to experience the improvisational rhythm of life in a world thousands of miles from home.

Read it all.